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Author Topic: Music formats  (Read 2299 times)

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Music formats
« on: February 14, 2007, 02:01:10 pm »
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MIDI music's been a stape of games since the earliest games that actually featured music, and it's done admirable for wuite a while. But now, the overall quality of games is getting better, with improvements to graphics, sound effects, space, etc. and people are starting to expect the music to be better as well. Do you guys think that, in our independant games, it's worth sacrificing the small filesize and flexibility of MIDIs for the better quality of MP3s or other similar formats?
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Re: Music formats
« Reply #1 on: February 14, 2007, 02:13:08 pm »
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No..not until internet speeds hit 10mbps for the general public...Only completely original songs should be mp3ed...
If you're making a fangame..you dont need that much original music...Just take a dang midi and edit it if you dont like the
way it is...lol...

Fight for the power of the midi!
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Re: Music formats
« Reply #2 on: February 14, 2007, 02:26:41 pm »
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Oh dear god no, stay the hell away from mp3 - Its so lossy :(. My advise is use ogg vorbis (slightly lossy) or flac (lossless).
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Re: Music formats
« Reply #3 on: February 14, 2007, 02:49:02 pm »
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everything is better than midi :P
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Re: Music formats
« Reply #4 on: February 14, 2007, 05:41:03 pm »
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I agree with Infinitus, also because the formats he advised are free/open formats.

MIDI is not that bad actually, and mp3 is actually worse. The thing is, if you MP3 it, you guarantee it will sound the same on all computers (except those that can't play the format because of various reasons). However, MIDI sounds better as long as it's outputted as it was intended. That means all instruments are supported and so on. When you MP3 an MIDI you are doing this: You play the MIDI file into a WAV file which is compressed to MP3. Doing the MIDI -> WAV step is the same thing as doing the MIDI -> Speaker thing.

However, if you do your recording with normal instruments instead of synthesizers (no MIDI at all) and then compress that to MP3 it's probably better than using MIDI because MIDI is synthesized and sounds quite unnatural (unless you're really good, or you have a very good synthesizer). But converting a MIDI to MP3 is ridiculous, because it's no difference than playing it to the speaker directly (except it takes more space).

Quote from: Theforeshadower on February 14, 2007, 02:13:08 pm
No..not until internet speeds hit 10mbps for the general public...
Not to defend MP3 in this, but for other cases; have you never heard anything about alternative versions? 56kers get the lesser version, and cable users get better version. Or 56kers get the better version too but it takes days to download :).
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Re: Music formats
« Reply #5 on: February 14, 2007, 05:56:18 pm »
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Quote from: Venus on February 14, 2007, 05:41:03 pm
I agree with Infinitus, also because the formats he advised are free/open formats.

MIDI is not that bad actually, and mp3 is actually worse. The thing is, if you MP3 it, you guarantee it will sound the same on all computers (except those that can't play the format because of various reasons). However, MIDI sounds better as long as it's outputted as it was intended. That means all instruments are supported and so on. When you MP3 an MIDI you are doing this: You play the MIDI file into a WAV file which is compressed to MP3. Doing the MIDI -> WAV step is the same thing as doing the MIDI -> Speaker thing.

However, if you do your recording with normal instruments instead of synthesizers (no MIDI at all) and then compress that to MP3 it's probably better than using MIDI because MIDI is synthesized and sounds quite unnatural (unless you're really good, or you have a very good synthesizer). But converting a MIDI to MP3 is ridiculous, because it's no difference than playing it to the speaker directly (except it takes more space).

Quote from: Theforeshadower on February 14, 2007, 02:13:08 pm
No..not until internet speeds hit 10mbps for the general public...
Not to defend MP3 in this, but for other cases; have you never heard anything about alternative versions? 56kers get the lesser version, and cable users get better version. Or 56kers get the better version too but it takes days to download :).
I said "MP3 or other similar formats" - what I meant was filetypes that store sound data rather than instrument/notation data, like MIDIs do. And I meant recorded or more professionally synthesized music, not recorded MIDI music, which is just ridiculous.
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Re: Music formats
« Reply #6 on: February 14, 2007, 06:23:00 pm »
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I wish Nintendo would do something other than .midi or .mp3, becuase frankly, Windows Media Player can't burn those to a CD. >:(
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Re: Music formats
« Reply #7 on: February 14, 2007, 07:41:43 pm »
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Then stop using Windows Media Player. :P There are plenty of other free players out there that I'm sure can burn Mp3s to a CD. Maybe even MIDs.
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Re: Music formats
« Reply #8 on: February 14, 2007, 10:21:19 pm »
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Like what?
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Re: Music formats
« Reply #9 on: February 14, 2007, 10:39:57 pm »
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Nintendo doesn't use .midi or .mp3 formats. The music in their games is MIDI, but not the same type as that of a PC, and the sound effects are also stored differently.
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Re: Music formats
« Reply #10 on: February 14, 2007, 11:10:29 pm »
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I'd just like to mention that file format is not so much the issue here... I could make a MIDI with crappy sounds, and encode that to an mp3... but it's not like encoding it in mp3, ogg, or flac magically makes the quality higher... Technically, the majority of digital music made (anything that is not a recording of a live performance) is MIDI...

MIDI is just a bunch of on and off signals letting the computer know when to play a note, and how long to play it for. Therefore, MIDI is the base of a lot of digital music. The only difference is you have assigned a sound sample of higher quality to that track. You could conceivably make a "decent" sounding MIDI through the use of soundfonts... but even then there's issues of firstly, those sounds not carrying over on to anyone else's computer, and also the lack of control over sounds.

Through higher end applications, you still use MIDI for many things, however you are able to define the way in which these are used and sound. As well, formats such as mp3, ogg, and flac are usually recordings, meaning that it captures the audio, and is independant of the sound samples used. Because of this, it plays exactly the same, on any player.

Just some related info.
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Re: Music formats
« Reply #11 on: February 15, 2007, 03:26:24 am »
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Quote from: Kame on February 14, 2007, 05:56:18 pm
recorded or more professionally synthesized music
Indeed. Is it possible to include a MIDI-type file, a group of samples, and some code to connect the dots with the game rather than a .midi or an encoded file?
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Re: Music formats
« Reply #12 on: February 15, 2007, 03:42:48 am »
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Quote from: Kame on February 15, 2007, 03:26:24 am
Quote from: Kame on February 14, 2007, 05:56:18 pm
recorded or more professionally synthesized music
Indeed. Is it possible to include a MIDI-type file, a group of samples, and some code to connect the dots with the game rather than a .midi or an encoded file?

Quoting yourself for emphasis? ;)  Yes it is possible to do that, or you could just use MOD files which are basically the same thing. I've seen a trick where an entire game's music is sequenced into one MOD and this file jumps around in-game to play different tracks, so that only one set of sound samples is needed.
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Re: Music formats
« Reply #13 on: February 15, 2007, 03:44:51 am »
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Quote from: Goodnight on February 15, 2007, 03:42:48 am
Quote from: Kame on February 15, 2007, 03:26:24 am
Quote from: Kame on February 14, 2007, 05:56:18 pm
recorded or more professionally synthesized music
Indeed. Is it possible to include a MIDI-type file, a group of samples, and some code to connect the dots with the game rather than a .midi or an encoded file?

Quoting yourself for emphasis? ;)  Yes it is possible to do that, or you could just use MOD files which are basically the same thing. I've seen a trick where an entire game's music is sequenced into one MOD and this file jumps around in-game to play different tracks, so that only one set of sound samples is needed.
Thanks, And, heh, no, just because I'd already briefly posted what Q.K. said in his post.
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Re: Music formats
« Reply #14 on: February 15, 2007, 12:54:10 pm »
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Quote
Quoting yourself for emphasis? Ouch, you poked my eye out!  Yes it is possible to do that, or you could just use MOD files which are basically the same thing. I've seen a trick where an entire game's music is sequenced into one MOD and this file jumps around in-game to play different tracks, so that only one set of sound samples is needed.
Hum ... your giving me ideas :D.
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Re: Music formats
« Reply #15 on: February 15, 2007, 01:35:23 pm »
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Quote from: Infinitus on February 15, 2007, 12:54:10 pm
Quote
Ouch, you poked my eye out!
How long did it take you to notice that? :P
Sorry for the off-topic.
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